ARC 2024 – 3MT Challenge Guidelines

Eligibility

• Applicants should be active MPhil/MD/PhD candidates having completed a substantial portion of their research and having sufficient findings to present.
• Postgraduates who have submitted their theses but have not yet been awarded the relevant degree are also eligible.
• Applicants need to submit an abstract in one of the following areas to be accepted for the competition
  • Medicine and Health Sciences
  • Health Policy and Medical Education
• Please use online abstract submission toolto submit your abstract. The deadline for abstract submission is 2^nd September 2024. Abstracts submitted after 2^nd September 2024 will not be considered.
• The abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by referees. The corresponding author will be informed of the results by email on or before 1^st October 2024.

If you do not get an e-mail acknowledging receipt of the abstract (within 24 hours) or have problems with using the tool please contact Dr. Thushari Dissanayake on +94 77 2988221 or Dr. Nilanka Perera on +94 71 8021350. You can also send an email to arc.fms@sjp.ac.lk for assistance.

ABSTRACT FORMAT

• The title of the abstract should be brief but adequately descriptive. The scientific committee reserves the right to modify the title where necessary. Font – Times New Roman, 14pt, Bold, Sentence case, Justified
• Authors should be listed using the entire surname followed by initial(s). Omit titles, degrees, and academic appointments and do not separate initials with punctuation e.g. Perera MP
• The affiliation must comprise ONLY department name, institution and country.
  Font – Times New Roman, 9pt, Italic, Justified
• The body of the abstract should be organised as outlined below.
• • Background : A brief description of the study.
  • Objectives : A statement of the purpose of the study.
  • Methods : A brief description of the study design.
  • Results : A summary of the results presented in sufficient detail to support the conclusion. Data must be presented in the abstract. Statements such as “the results will be presented” or “other data will be presented to support….” will result in automatic rejection of the abstract.
  • Conclusions : A statement of the conclusions based on the data presented.
  • Acknowledgement : Funding agencies only.
• The number of words is limited strictly to 300 excluding the title, authors, affiliations and acknowledgement. Each word or number is counted as one word whether it is one character or 10 characters long. Units will count as part of the number with which they are attached.
  Font – Times New Roman, 11pt, Single space
• Please ensure that abstracts do not include graphs, tables, figures, diagrams or references.
• Use only standard abbreviations.
• The author/s should take the responsibility for the research work and the contents reported in the abstract.
• If the work has been previously presented or published, in whole or in part, this should be stated clearly. This does not disqualify a paper.
• The Scientific committee reserves the right to make alterations and to edit text to improve presentation.
• Abstracts not conforming to the above instructions will be rejected. Accepted abstracts will be published in the abstracts book.
• All research studies should be supported by a scanned copy of a letter granting approval from an acceptable Ethical Review Committee (ERC). Author/s need to justify as to why the ethical approval was not needed for studies conducted without an approval of an ERC. Please upload the ERC letter or justification separately through the online abstract submission tool at the time of submission of your abstract. Abstracts of studies not supported by valid ERC approval will be rejected.

Selected abstracts will be presented (orally) at the conference.